Makkah Masjid blast: After acquitting terror suspects, NIA judge resigns

Agencies
April 16, 2018

Hyderabad, Apr 16: A special anti-terror court today acquitted Hindutva preacher Swami Aseemanand and four others in the 11-year-old Mecca Masjid blast case and shortly afterwards the judge resigned, in a stunning move dubbed as "intriguing" by a political party.

K Ravinder Reddy, the special judge for NIA cases, tendered his resignation, citing "personal" reasons barely hours after pronouncing the judgement in which he held that the prosecution failed to prove "even a single allegation" against the five accused.

Reddy said his resignation had nothing to do with today's judgement, according to a senior judicial officer, who did not want to be named.

AIMIM Chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, meanwhile, tweeted, "Judge who gave acquittal to all accused in Mecca Masjid Blast RESIGNS very intriguing and I am surprised with the Lordship decision", amid questions over the functioning of the National Investigation Agency(NIA).

A powerful blast, triggered by remote control, had ripped through the over four centuries-old mosque here during an assembly of devotees on May 18, 2007, when they had gathered for Friday prayers, killing nine people and wounding 58.

"Prosecution (NIA) could not prove even a single allegation against any of the accused and all of them stand acquitted," J P Sharma, the counsel for 66-year-old Assemanand, told reporters after the verdict was pronounced by judge Reddy.

The media was not allowed in the courtroom where the judgement was pronounced in the high-profile case, which was dubbed by the then UPA government as one of "Hindu terror", a term that riled saffron organisations, including the BJP.

"He has sent the resignation letter to MSJ(Metropolitan Sessions Judge)...he has cited personal grounds and it has nothing to do with today's verdict in the Mecca Masjid blast case," the senior judicial officer told PTI, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Reddy, had apparently taken the decision to resign sometimes back itself, the officer said.

Soon after the verdict, the NIA had come in for attack by opposition parties, including the Congress and AIMIM.

Apart from Aseemanand, those acquitted are -- Devendra Gupta, Lokesh Sharma, Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar alias Bharat Bhai and Rajendra Chowdhary.

Though there were 10 accused in the case, only these five were tried. Two other accused -- Sandeep V Dange and Ramchandra Kalsangra -- are absconding, while Sunil Joshi was murdered. The investigation is continuing against two others.

The bomb had exploded in an area of the mosque where devotees performed ablutions. Two more Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) were later found and defused by the police.

The incident had triggered violent protests and riots, prompting police action in which five more people were killed.

A family member of one of the victims said the verdict should be challenged while the NIA said it will chalk out its future course of action after getting a copy of the judgement.

The acquittals prompted the Congress to question the functioning of the NIA under the Modi government, but the BJP asserted that the court's decision had exposed the opposition party's politics of "defaming" Hindus for votes.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra alleged in New Delhi that the Congress has long "defamed" Hindus for votes and demanded that party president Rahul Gandhi and his predecessor Sonia Gandhi apologise for using terms like "saffron terror" and "Hindutva terror".

But the Congress said there is nothing called 'saffron terror', asserting that it was of firm belief that terror cannot be linked to any religion or community, and made it clear its leader Rahul Gandhi or the party never used the phrase.

"Rahul Gandhi or the Congress party has never used the words 'saffron terror'," Congress spokesperson P L Punia told reporters in Delhi when asked about the BJP's allegations.

"It is mere rubbish. There is nothing called saffron terror," he said, adding terrorism is a criminal mentality and it cannot be linked to any religion or community.

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said, "It (acquittal) is happening in each case since the government was formed four years ago...people are losing faith in the agencies."

Owaisi, in an earlier tweet, claimed that the NIA did not properly pursue the case, leading to the acquittal of the accused.

According to Aseemanand's counsel Sharma, the court after examining documents and material placed on record found that the charges did not stick.

"This entire case was based on the confessional statement of Swami Aseemanand. Right from the beginning, we had been placing before the court that this is not the statement of confession.

"The defence argued that the so-called confessional statement was forced from Swami Aseemanand in order to create a theory of 'Bhagwa Atankwad' (saffron terror)," he said.

The court, Sharma said, held that the confessional statement of Aseemanand was not voluntary. "CBI had got the statement of Swami Aseemanand recorded in Delhi while he was in police custody during December 2010," he said.

Sharma claimed the investigating officer of the CBI had "intentionally" implicated the accused to sully the image of 'Sant Samaj' (the fraternity of seers) and the RSS, to which those acquitted belonged at some point of time. 

Bengaluru, Apr 16: An RBI survey has revealed an alarming dip in consumer confidence, causing serious worry to the BJP ahead of the Assembly elections in Karnataka.

The Reserve Bank of India’s quarterly survey, held in March, covered households in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi. The 5,297 households quizzed for the survey revealed that people expect a bleak employment situation this year, while also fearing a steep rise in prices of essential household items.

Indeed, consumer confidence dropped from 96.9 in December — the last time the survey was conducted — to 95.1 in March. Expectations for the next year also fell to 117.4. A reading below 100 would indicate pessimism. 

While consumer confidence took a hit due to a hopeless job situation, more than 80% people surveyed in the six cities also expected prices of essential commodities to rise in the April-June quarter. About 40% of them even expect prices to rise at a faster pace in the next one year.

Findings of the survey — released last week — primarily reflected deeper concerns over the rise in prices of essential items, while there is also an expectation on the surge in housing prices.

Rising prices and farmers’ distress are chief among a series of issues in the state elections, with the prime minister trying to woo the farmers through his government’s decision to increase Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) for their produce and efforts to double their income by 2022.

The survey showed that the households’ current perceptions on the general economic situation dived sharply from the neutral level in December. Their one year-ahead outlook also deteriorated, despite remaining in the range of optimism.

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News Network
June 22,2020

Geneva, Jun 22: The global count of coronavirus cases has surpassed 8.7 million, with 183,020 new cases recorded on Sunday, the World Health Organisation said in its daily situation report.

Over the last 24 hours, 4,743 people died from COVID-19 worldwide, taking the death toll to 461,715 fatalities, according to the report.

The cumulative global toll of confirmed cases has now reached 8,708,008, as stated in the report.

The WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, shared that Europe accounts for 31 per cent of COVID-19 cases and 43 per cent of COVID-19 deaths globally.

Dr Kluge highlighted that several countries continue to face increasing disease incidence and that "preparing for the autumn is a priority now at the WHO Regional Office for Europe"

The United States continues to be worst affected by the contagion with the highest count of cases and fatalities -- 2.2 million and 118,895, respectively.

The novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic by WHO on March 11.

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News Network
June 8,2020

New Delhi, Jun 8: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has announced that malls, restaurants and religious places in the national capital would open from Monday after more than two months since the coronavirus-induced lockdown was imposed, but banquet halls and hotels would remain closed.

At an online briefing on Sunday, Kejriwal said hotels and banquet halls might be converted into hospitals in the coming days to treat coronavirus patients and therefore, they would remain shut.

"Malls, restaurants and religious places will be opening from Monday in Delhi in accordance with the Centre's guidelines," he said.

The city government will comply with the instructions of the Centre and its experts like maintaining social distancing and wearing of masks at these places, Kejriwal said.

"In view of the rising number of coronavirus cases, we might attach hotels and banquet halls with hospitals and convert them into hospitals. Hotels and banquet halls will not be opened for now," he said.

The Centre had said on May 30 that "Unlock-1" would be initiated in the country from June 8 and the lockdown would be relaxed to a great extent.

The Delhi government also issued an order allowing opening of restaurants, shopping malls and places of worship except in the COVID-19 containment zones, "subject to compliance with the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare".

Kejriwal urged the elderly people, who are at a higher risk of contracting the coronavirus, to confine themselves in a room and not to interact with even the family members in order to protect themselves.

Delhi has so far registered over 27,500 coronavirus cases, including 761 deaths.

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coastaldigest.com web desk
June 27,2020

New Delhi, June 27: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led union government of India is not ready to stop all imports from aggressive China in spite of mount calls to boycott Chinese products in India.

The Centre is reportedly considering to stop only non-essential imports from the neighbouring country.

However, the Inward shipment in sectors such as automobiles, pharmaceuticals, certain electronics and others will continue until a domestic alternative is found.

“India will gradually move towards import substitution. It will not happen overnight. In the meantime, attention has to be paid on production and job creation. We cannot throttle our industry. There are certain absolutely essential imports. Needless to say, those will keep going,” official sources said.

Sources said that both the government and the industry are in the process of identifying products that can be domestically manufactured in the medium term. There are certain chemicals, automotive components, handicrafts, cosmetics, agriculture items and certain consumer electronics, which can be manufactured domestically in the short to medium term. The government is doing all it can to raise the capacity of domestic industries.

However, there are certain other imports in the automobile and the pharmaceutical sectors which cannot be done away within the short to medium term. Their domestic production at the moment may not be that cost-effective.

The six-crore strong traders’ body CAIT has been at the forefront of such a demand and has launched a campaign to celebrate Indian Diwali this year with a total absence of Chinese goods.

“Ease of doing business, capital availability at lower rates and globally competitive logistics and energy costs are some of the prerequisites that the government should look into to ensure the growth of the domestic auto component industry,” according to Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA) Director General Vinnie Mehta.

Maruti Suzuki Chairman R C Bhargava said, “People who are boycotting Chinese goods have to remember that in some cases it may lead to their being asked to pay more for the same product."

Meanwhile, domestic rating agency Acuite Ratings & Research has analysed the current import portfolio from China and found 40 sub-sectors have the potential to lower their import dependency on China. These sectors contribute to $33.6 billion worth of imports from China and about 25% of these imports can be substituted by local manufacturing without any significant additional investments.

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